In practice, film study, meetings and their individual sessions. Brady and Gordon have separately detailed the extra time they've put in together these last few months. The results scream for themselves.

Gordon's led the league in yards per reception since starting his on-field Patriots career in Week 4 and currently leads the team in receiving yards. Brady's last three weeks have been among his most productive of the season. The two have connected on 13 of 16 pass attempts since returning from their bye week.

"We spend so much time here. We're here til late at night, early in the morning and on the field; watching film and so forth," Brady said Friday. "It's just been great. I can't say enough good things."

"I came in with the idea he was a hard-working guy, and he's done nothing but shown that continuously and consistently," Gordon said last week. "He's a family man, he loves his family, FaceTiming with his kids, which is something I can relate to with my family, my kids. He enjoys the game and everything that comes with it."

Gordon intimated Friday he didn't think twice about accepting an invite from Brady to stay in the facility longer than the staff mandated.

"I think it's a good suggestion to take if somebody offers it to you -- especially Tom Brady," he said. "I think it's something that you should pick up on and try to get involved in, so that's what I did."

When Gordon's worked with the coaches, Bill Belichick says he's noticed the receiver's assimilated into the offense more easily than most due to his diverse experience in Cleveland. Yes, he wore the same uniform and suffered through many a losing season. Along the way, Gordon learned a lot of football, too; including from former offensive coordinator Todd Haley, whose offense employs similar terminology and nuances to New England's, per Gordon.

"For better or worse, he's been in a lot of different systems. I know it was only one team, but it was a lot of different systems up there. Most everything we've asked him to do he's done somewhere along the line for somebody," Belichick said. "There isn't a lot of, 'Well, I've never done that before or what are we talking about here.' It was just kind of transferring it into what we do relative to the way he did it in the past and what the differences are and maybe what the similarities are."

"As we go through each week, I would say we've gained a little more ground on the overall knowledge of the system. Not there but going in the right direction."